There's some weird stuff in your linked article that makes me wonder if Surface RT is some parallel nightmare universe version of normal Windows 8 beyond the typical 'ARM only' bit. Don't consider this nitpicking; just some questions that came to mind, since your experience is so different from mine using win8 on a tablet.
Word doesn't have autosave anymore? It's had it since like Office 95!
Did the machine really power itself off, losing your work, every week even if you had it in hibernate or sleep mode? That would really surprise me, I haven't seen my tablet do that. Windows Update is a troublemaker, for sure, though...
Why is the keyboard behavior you describe such a problem? For me, I consider the Windows 8 behavior the only optimal choice: Windows software in general is designed on the assumption that screen geometry will not change constantly every time you tap. The android/iOS behavior of keyboards popping up at random as the focus moves around can be a real pain when trying to precision target objects, scroll around, or highlight content. There are certainly cases where it's unambiguous and the keyboard could just be popped up, but at most I found that a minor nitpick when interacting with W8 on a daily basis - and you've got a Surface, where you can just attach a keyboard and start typing. Is it just something that really annoyed you, from a friction perspective, even though it doesn't have a big workflow impact?
Word doesn't have autosave anymore? It's had it since like Office 95!
Did the machine really power itself off, losing your work, every week even if you had it in hibernate or sleep mode? That would really surprise me, I haven't seen my tablet do that. Windows Update is a troublemaker, for sure, though...
Why is the keyboard behavior you describe such a problem? For me, I consider the Windows 8 behavior the only optimal choice: Windows software in general is designed on the assumption that screen geometry will not change constantly every time you tap. The android/iOS behavior of keyboards popping up at random as the focus moves around can be a real pain when trying to precision target objects, scroll around, or highlight content. There are certainly cases where it's unambiguous and the keyboard could just be popped up, but at most I found that a minor nitpick when interacting with W8 on a daily basis - and you've got a Surface, where you can just attach a keyboard and start typing. Is it just something that really annoyed you, from a friction perspective, even though it doesn't have a big workflow impact?